Case Study: Implementing Social Media
Matt Markins keeps the conversation going.
Planner: Matt Markins, Randall House marketing and sales director
Event: D6 Conference
Our conference is designed for ministers, leaders, church volunteers and those core parents at a church who are really involved to help them understand how to motivate and inspire parents to be more active in the lives of their children and their teens. The name, D6, is based on Deuteronomy 6, which is the primary parenting passage in the Bible where Moses tells the children of Israel to pass along their faith and their heritage to their children.
We have our main event in Dallas in September. Our model is to always have a main event and then [in the future] to either do regional events or simulcast events. We’re not sure exactly which direction we are going to go yet.
Audience and Technology: I would say about 40 percent are very saavy, 20 percent are so-so, and then 40 percent are probably not very saavy at all.
Best Practices: Most of our speakers already have blogs because they are writers, authors, celebrities to their niche, and so people are already going to their blogs to get that frontliner information. So it doesn’t take much twisting of their arm to get them to talk about the D6 conference. They know, “If I talk about this conference that I’m going to be at, maybe I can drive more people to that conference who are going to hear my message; they are going to love my books; they’re going to buy my books.” So it’s to their benefit to talk about the events that they are involved in.
We do a lot of videos and all of the speakers who chose to be a part of our promotional videos did not ask to be compensated for their time. They realize that giving of their time (two hours on a video shoot) and giving to the marketing and the promotion, they are basically driving their own self-interest. We also have videos of Steve411 — he’s like a video concierge. When you get to an event there are always lots of people helping you find stuff, lots of signage, so Steve’s job, four to five months before the event, was to explain to people before they even got there things like that. He gave tours, he was goofy and fun, and then we used him at the live event also.
I could have my intern Twitter great things about us all week long, but when someone else Twitters about us who’s a trusted source, that is what’s most significant. Developing solid relationships with influential people in your niche audience who use social media is an incredible use of your time and energy. Those people, when they talk about you, they are going to drive attention and traffic in your direction.
Overall Advice: The goal is for the conversation to never stop. You want to be talking about the event to promote the event, but the thing about social media is if it’s not authentic, if it’s not a natural conversation, if it’s all about advertising, then social media really doesn’t work. Social media has to be a conversation. It has to be not all about my event and me. In order to make it successful you have to promote the event before [it happens] … engage in a dialog, not just about registration, but also, “Here’s some info about this speaker.” Create a dialog before, Twitter during the event, ask questions on the screen, and use Flickr afterward to keep it going.
Matt Markins is the director and co-founder of the D6 Conference. He lives in Nashville, Tenn., with his wife and two boys and writes a parenting blog at mattmarkins.com. Jennifer Garrett interviewed Markins for this case study.
The Steve 411: Arriving to a conference blind can be very difficult. Signage and helpful volunteers can help, but D6 went a step further during its event. For several months leading up to the conference, Steve 411, a “video concierge,” informed — and entertained — attendees through YouTube videos. He told them about the logistics of the conference, the layout of the Dallas-Frisco Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center, and gave other helpful hints.
